Should I just get a PS4?

[Lemonpearl]

I'm trying to upgrade my PC as it's still bottlenecked by an old Athlon x4 860k. However, I was pretty shocked to see how expensive RAM is nowadays.

 

I can upgrade to an i3-7100 (+ new moba, ram and cpu cooler) for at least the same price as a PS4 w/ bundle. So I'm left wondering, is it even worth upgrading?

 

Specs:

Athlon x4 860k

EVGA GTX 1050 ti SC

RAM: DDR3 2x4 GB

SSD

[K i a r a]

Intel: Upgrade the Moba. + CPU.

Ryzen RAM + Moba + CPU.

 

Would still be better then a PS4..

 

PS4 game Prices +  Online. $$$$

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Look at something like a used i5-2500K or 4670K and the motherboards that go with them. Obviously you can reuse everything else

[SteveGrabowski0]

1 hour ago, K i a r a said:

Intel: Upgrade the Moba. + CPU.

Ryzen RAM + Moba + CPU.

 

Would still be better then a PS4..

 

PS4 game Prices +  Online. $$$$

PS4 game prices aren't bad at all because there is so much competition between brick and mortar stores. Paying for online sucks but Steam doesn't subsidize your hardware costs on your PC the way Sony does on a PS4.

[SteveGrabowski0]

1 hour ago, Lemonpearl said:

I'm trying to upgrade my PC as it's still bottlenecked by an old Athlon x4 860k. However, I was pretty shocked to see how expensive RAM is nowadays.

 

I can upgrade to an i3-7100 (+ new moba, ram and cpu cooler) for at least the same price as a PS4 w/ bundle. So I'm left wondering, is it even worth upgrading?

 

Specs:

Athlon x4 860k

EVGA GTX 1050 ti SC

RAM: DDR3 2x4 GB

SSD

If you want PS4 exclusives get a PS4. Otherwise go Coffee Lake with an i3-8100. No reason to go Kaby Lake and an i3-7100 when the i3-8100 is basically an i5-7500 for the cost of an i3-7100. A 1050 Ti is a much better gpu than what is in the base PS4.

[ono]

You're already invested in PC gaming, so it seems to me that upgrading your PC is the better route to maintain and continue building your existing PC gaming library. I also echo the Coffee Lake recommendation. That also gives you some upgrade options in the future to higher core counts since I suspect gaming will utilize more cores as the norm down the road, like when consoles refresh with Ryzen or whatever in 2 years or so. Ryzen is good too since AMD seems more committed to keeping the current socket around longer than Intel. Since you seem a bit concerned of a price of such a big overhaul, the stopgap option of keeping your DDR3 RAM by buying used older gen Intel works and hopefully pricing is better when gaming demands higher core count. That should be OK for most stuff, save for silly outliers like Assassin's Creed: Origins and its crazy CPU intensive DRM.

[Stefan Payne]

8 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

I'm trying to upgrade my PC as it's still bottlenecked by an old Athlon x4 860k. However, I was pretty shocked to see how expensive RAM is nowadays.

 

I can upgrade to an i3-7100 (+ new moba, ram and cpu cooler) for at least the same price as a PS4 w/ bundle. So I'm left wondering, is it even worth upgrading?

1. Look at Ryzen 3 and 5 as well, especially the 2000. But remember that the 2k series needs a BIOS Update to run on 300 series Boards.

 

2. Do you want to play PS4 Exclusives?
What do you expect from the PS4?

That is something you didn't really answer. But is kinda important.

3. Are you actually interesstet the usual Console Games? Or do you prefer to play on a PC with Mouse and Keyboard?

 

In general: You should see the Console as an addition to your PC. not an alternative, for various reasons.

[mayu]

Agreed on what most others are saying, go only if want to play PS4 exclusives

I recently got one for same reason, not going to buy anything which is available on PC (unless PC version is not good)

[Lemonpearl]

9 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

1. Look at Ryzen 3 and 5 as well, especially the 2000. But remember that the 2k series needs a BIOS Update to run on 300 series Boards.

 

2. Do you want to play PS4 Exclusives?
What do you expect from the PS4?

That is something you didn't really answer. But is kinda important.

3. Are you actually interesstet the usual Console Games? Or do you prefer to play on a PC with Mouse and Keyboard?

 

In general: You should see the Console as an addition to your PC. not an alternative, for various reasons.

1) Does Ryzen 3 and 5 demand DDR4, or can I use my DDR3 ram?

2) Yeah, I've actually been wanting to play some exclusives (Bloodborne, God of War, Persona series, Dreams etc. etc.)

3) I generally prefer controllers and couch gaming.

[Majinhoju]

If you enjoy couch gaming as you said and want to play the exclusives then yes, go for a ps4.

Then just upgrade your PC later on as you save your money.

[ono]

3 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

1) Does Ryzen 3 and 5 demand DDR4, or can I use my DDR3 ram?

2) Yeah, I've actually been wanting to play some exclusives (Bloodborne, God of War, Persona series, Dreams etc. etc.)

3) I generally prefer controllers and couch gaming.

Ryzen requires DDR4 and so does Coffee Lake. I do controller couch gaming with my PC. It's hooked up to the TV, but still need a wireless KBM to get stuff started so console is a little smoother experience there. I guess if you start up Steam big picture and use a steam controller when some menu point and click is needed it'd be better? Not sure I don't use either.

 

Bloodborne, God of War, and Persona 5 are my fav games on the PS4, so I think you'll be happy with one if you go that route. BTW, you only have Persona 5 available on PS4. I guess there are some upcoming dancing game spin-offs if that's what you're referring to. Unless you know something about a Persona 6 that I don't know about haha

[Stefan Payne]

6 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

1) Does Ryzen 3 and 5 demand DDR4, or can I use my DDR3 ram?

They demand DDR4-SDRAM.

The last Plattform that makes sense and uses DDR-3 SDRAM is LGA1150 with Haswell and Broadwell.

6 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

2) Yeah, I've actually been wanting to play some exclusives (Bloodborne, God of War, Persona series, Dreams etc. etc.)

3) I generally prefer controllers and couch gaming.

Then it seems like you _WANT_ the PS4 and it might not be a bad idea to get it.

 

I personally would recommend the PRO, regardles of the screen because of better performance and/or better image quality.

[Peskanova]

with that pc I would recomend you to look for some 4gen intel cpu (like people told you before) but a 8100 also can improve a lot your experience in gaming .

From consoles i just tell you to buy what your friends are playing , if they are ps4 players go for it , if its pc go to pc.

[Lemonpearl]

21 hours ago, Majinhoju said:

If you enjoy couch gaming as you said and want to play the exclusives then yes, go for a ps4.

Then just upgrade your PC later on as you save your money.

Hmm... I might just go down the 4th gen intel route like others said. Then I'd get a mitx board so I can swap out my pc case for something compact. I can have more or less the best of both worlds (minus the PS4 exclusives).

 

The only problem is I can't seem to find any 1150 socket mitx boards for a decent price   

[Lemonpearl]

20 hours ago, ono said:

Ryzen requires DDR4 and so does Coffee Lake. I do controller couch gaming with my PC. It's hooked up to the TV, but still need a wireless KBM to get stuff started so console is a little smoother experience there. I guess if you start up Steam big picture and use a steam controller when some menu point and click is needed it'd be better? Not sure I don't use either.

You should be able to launch steam on startup in Windows and automatically start Steam in big picture mode?

[Majinhoju]

4 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

Hmm... I might just go down the 4th gen intel route like others said. Then I'd get a mitx board so I can swap out my pc case for something compact. I can have more or less the best of both worlds (minus the PS4 exclusives).

 

The only problem is I can't seem to find any 1150 socket mitx boards for a decent price   

I'm rocking an I5 4670k from maybe 4 or 5 years ago and it's still going strong.  I was happy with it back when I was gaming with a gtx 780 and I'm still happy with it using my newer gtx 1080.  They're still great gaming cpus. If you can get a 4770 or 4790 with the hyperthreading that'll give you a bit more oomph in multi threaded games.

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

Hmm... I might just go down the 4th gen intel route like others said. Then I'd get a mitx board so I can swap out my pc case for something compact. I can have more or less the best of both worlds (minus the PS4 exclusives).

 

The only problem is I can't seem to find any 1150 socket mitx boards for a decent price   

Yes, because there were none.

They were more highendish Boards that were as expensive as high end Boards. Funny enough that I was able to get an MSI H81I, but then again, its the lowest end Chipset available for the Plattform. 

4 hours ago, Lemonpearl said:

You should be able to launch steam on startup in Windows and automatically start Steam in big picture mode?

Yes, that should be possible.

And you can also download SteamOS but many games won't be supported on that.

[SteveGrabowski0]

On 7/4/2018 at 9:48 AM, Lemonpearl said:

Hmm... I might just go down the 4th gen intel route like others said. Then I'd get a mitx board so I can swap out my pc case for something compact. I can have more or less the best of both worlds (minus the PS4 exclusives).

 

The only problem is I can't seem to find any 1150 socket mitx boards for a decent price   

You haven't been able to find Z97 mITX boards for reasonable prices for more than two years. Otherwise I would have done the same with my system a couple of years ago.

[SteveGrabowski0]

This is probably what I would go with to hit a $300 budget on mini ITX for cpu + board + RAM. No reason to buy a cooler, the Intel stock cooler is fine. Though you'll want to add another 8GB stick of RAM later probably.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i3-8100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($117.90 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H310M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($79.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($79.99 @ Corsair) 
Total: $277.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-05 12:13 EDT-0400

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

Get the PS4 for exclusives if you like what they have.  As for your pc I don't know what you want from it but to me it sounds like just upgrading the cpu would be worthwhile.  Be a smart shopper and look for a good deal.  I have to pcs that are older here  and have similar specs with one just having an AMD  FX 6300.  Get a used cpu upgrade and hell yes ask to see it working.